Effects of tourism on the host population : a case study of tourism and regional development in the Badenoch-Strathspey district of the Scottish Highlands

Download

Date

Author

Metadata

Abstract

This thesis seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the effects of tourism on the host population,
within the context of planning for regional development.
In the Badenoch-Strathspey District of the rural Scottish
Highlands, various surveys were undertaken to obtain a
wide range of information on historical trends, policies
and planning, use of resources, the tourist industry and
the resident population.
To provide a framework for assessing effects, a set
of key indicators was devised. Many are subjective in
nature, and a major challenge of this research has been
to obtain suitable measures for each indicator. Effects
could not be 'proved', given the absence of a controlled
experiment, so many of the observations are suggestive
rather than conclusive, or deduced rather than based on
inferential statistics.
The explanation of effects required a detailed
assessment of the tourist industry, so that actual mechanisms of change could be isolated. It was found that the
most profound changes affecting residents stemmed from
development and growth in general, leading to the integration of residents in the mainstream of national economic and social trends.
Tourism had some unique effects and exacerbated
others. Most significant of the positive effects were the
creation of new opportunities for jobs, incomes, and
leisure, while a shortage of housing and some crime and
social disruption were the main negative effects. The
demands of large-scale developments for importing staff
and using mainly unskilled and female labour had the
greatest effect which could be attributed uniquely to
tourism. However, the attainment of a winter season and
an emphasis on sports and large facilities increased the
value of tourism by providing more all-year jobs for
males. Overall, it was concluded that the benefits brought
by recent developments had outweighed the costs and problems to residents and the local authorities.
In assessing the implications of the case study,
analysis focussed on key policy-related questions. Most
significant of these was the question of concentration
versus dispersal of developments. It was concluded that
a large-scale concentration was most appropriate for
generating major changes, but that it eventually became
desirable to limit the dominance of the concentration in
order to disperse more widely the benefits that could be
obtained from tourism.